Easter lemon cupcakes

Happy Easter everyone! I actually had another post planned but thought it made sense to post my easter bake while it was still easter weekend.

I'm not sure whether lemon cupcakes are actually Easter-y, but they certainly feel fresh and spring like and I've photographed them next to painted eggs so that's good enough for me.

Apologies to the citrus hating followers as I'm aware that half my bakes so far this year have involved lemon or passion fruit. I will try to move into other flavours soon!

If you're a lemon fan like me then these are absolutely perfect: a fluffy, zesty sponge with a sharp lemon curd centre topped with a soft, sweet, lemony butter icing.

By the way do you like my new floral fabric? I found this "scrap" in a charity shop on Friday and couldn't leave it behind. It's such a great retro pattern (and look, Fiona, I ironed it!)

Lemon cupcakes

175g caster sugar

175g margarine

3 duck eggs (weighing 175g, regular hen eggs are fine too)

175g self-raising flour

grated rind of one lemon

1 tbsp milk

1 tbsp lemon juice

jar of lemon curd (I used Tesco brand and it was lovely) or homemade lemon curd

300g icing sugar

100g butter

2 tbsp lemon juice

splash of milk

  
Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Beat the sugar and margarine until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, beating after each addition, and adding a tablespoon of the self-raising flour with the last egg to prevent the mixture curdling. Add the lemon rind, milk, lemon juice and flour and mix until everything is encorporated, taking care to not overbeat the mixture. Fill each cupcake case 2/3 full (I filled 18 cases with this mixture) and pop into the oven for approximately 25 minutes until risen, golden on top and springy to touch. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out on to a cooling rack.

  
Once cool (carefully) cut a circular hollow from the top of each sponge using a sharp knife, dollop a teaspoonful of lemon curd inside and put the top back on. Mix the icing sugar, butter and lemon juice together until smooth and fluffy. Pipe on a swirl or spread the icing using a palette knife. I didn't quite have enough icing to cover all my cupcakes so you may need to adjust the quantities depending on how much icing you like to put on your cakes.

Technical stuff

I don't really understand what's going on regarding google reader/bloglovin. I read blogs from my blogger dashboard, is that google reader? (Don't laugh at me!)

Anyway, you can follow me on bloglovin' here:  <a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/3293181/?claim=j2bss593kba">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

It appears there are two versions of my blog on bloglovin'. How?! The above link is for the .com which has most followers (so I would advise using that one) although the .co.uk version is here: <a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/4064248/?claim=tp5vdn6m2gd">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Uggghhhh I'm rubbish with technology.

Passionfruit white chocolate cake

When I bought myself a copy of the new Clandestine Cake Club book a couple of weeks ago I immediately knew I had to make this cake. Not only does it involve my new found love for passionfruit but also my long term love for white chocolate. And I got to make curd!

The cake did not disappoint; it tasted absolutely gorgeous. The sponge was light and juicy, and white chocolate butter icing with passionfruit curd whipped through it might just be my favourite new icing. The zingy-ness of the passionfruit with the sweetness of the chocolate is such a great pairing.

I used duck eggs in my cake and curd and I'm sure it made them extra sunshiney and yellow, although perhaps not as radioactive as my photographs may suggest (damn night time light!) My friend and I baked in the evening and decided to enjoy the cake as late night elevenses, the best kind of elevenses if you ask me!

The original recipe comes from the creative chocolate fiend Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog which she baked for her first CCC event. If you haven't visited Choclette before then I highly recommend you do. The recipe is more or less a victoria sponge with the addition of two tablespoons of passionfruit curd and a tablespoon of lemon juice so I won't type it out. However I will direct you over to the Chocolate Log Blog for the passionfruit curd recipe. It is the brightest, happiest curd you'll ever set eyes on. I may have made a little extra just to eat from the jar...

Banana blondie fail

I was so excited about these blondies which made it all the more devastating that they didn't particularly work.

 
The first disaster was burning the caramel for the nutty brittle (why do I find this so hard?! It was like the tarte tatin incident all over again) but thankfully the second batch worked. I'm blaming the cooker as I'm convinced it's not level which caused the caramel to cook quicker on one side.

Disaster number two were the eggs. I had already mashed my bananas and cracked the egg on top. BUT...........the egg was off. Eugh! I had only poured it down the side so I rescued as much of the banana as I could which hadn't touched the egg and thankfully I had one extra banana to spare.

The rest of the mixture came together absolutely fine and I whacked it in the oven. The recipe stated that it should be golden and "wobbly-set". I thought it looked too wobbly so I left it in the oven for an extra ten minutes with the top covered with a sheet of baking parchment to stop the surface from burning.

Despite my gut instinct to leave it in longer I took it out in fear of over-baking. Blondies and brownies are deceptively tricky aren't they? They almost need to err on being a little undercooked to have the chewy, squidgy element as they're no use if they're over baked.

 

Well, mine were practically raw in the middle. After leaving them to cool and rescuing the edges (which tasted lovely, although very sweet) I put the rest back in the oven, hoping I could make it slightly more edible. This may have worked had I not wandered off and completely forgotten about it, resulting in this burnt mess.....

More brownie than blondie wouldn't you agree? 

Saying that, it still tasted quite nice (although crunchy) so the recipe may be worth revisiting. I'm glad I persevered with the caramel as it brought a lovely sticky banoffee flavour with the bananas to the blondie. If any of you have caramel "issues" like me, whatever you do, DO NOT put the hot pan of caramel in cold water (unless you fancy having shards of caramel in your face although I wouldn't recommend it). Set it aside on the hob for a few minutes before filling it with warm-hot soapy water. After leaving it to soak for a bit it will dissolve and wipe clean no bother. 

Come on, make me feel better. Who else has had a baking fail recently?

Chocolate cupcakes

Hello, remember me?

Apologies for my disappearance. I did absolutely no baking last month (I know, I'm as shocked as you). Life and lack of internet connection for 3 weeks (thanks BT) left me feeling too tired to bake or blog.


 

Does anyone else feel a weird sense of responsibility to their blog in terms of maintaining standards and keeping an "online presence"? I know it's largely self imposed, as we can do whatever we want within our own blogspaces, but I felt really guilty for not updating or replying/commenting on other blogs. I've also been aware for a while that I should make a few little changes here, but the thought of doing anything extra makes me want to stick my head in a bucket full of sand as there are so many other things I need to be getting on with at the moment.

However I am back, with cupcakes (yay!), and have been gradually catching up with everything online over the last week. I had forgotten how good chocolate sponge batter tastes. It's the best! The mixture uses cocoa powder as opposed to real chocolate, but it still produces a cupcake with a satisfying chocolatey punch.

I baked these last week as I wanted to try out my new(ish) Lakeland cupcakes cases and show off my new cake stand which matches one of my sets of china. I don't think it's an exact match as the cups and saucers are fine bone china whereas the cake stand plates are quite chunky, but it's close enough to be pretty and only cost a fiver. 

I'm very impressed with the cupcake cases. They kept their colour and pattern really well, and that's with a chocolate batter! You know you're a little sad when you're impressed with the standard of cupcake cases, but it's so annoying to find a pretty case only to discover the pattern disappears or the colours go transparent once baked. Anyone else find that disappointing?

Chocolate cupcakes

  
175g Stork margarine

150g caster sugar

25g soft light brown sugar (I fancied adding a bit of brown sugar, might put more in next time. As long as the overall sugar weight is 175g)

3 eggs (weighing roughly 175g)

150g self-raising flour

25g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and line cupcakes tin with cases. Beat margarine and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Sift together the flour and cocoa powder in a separate bowl. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture, lightly beating between each addition, adding a tablespoon of the flour mixture with the last egg to prevent the mixture curdling. Mix in the remaining flour, vanilla extract and milk until the mixture is fully combined. Be careful not to overmix though as you don't want to beat all the air out the mixture, just make sure it no longer looks streaky with cocoa powder. 

Fill the cupcake cases 2/3 full. The mixture should stretch to roughly 15 cupcakes. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

For the icing I followed the Hummingbird Bakery's chocolate buttercream and piped as swirls (working from the centre outwards) using a Wilton 1M nozzle.